Stitches Trade Show - and some winners

I have loads and loads of photos to show you all over the next few days, I figure if you couldn't come to the show with me, I'll bring it to you! So there will be a chance to see things that caught my eye, loads of the sample cards that looked so beautiful and may give you inspiration.... Today's post is all about just ONE company - Sissix. I am not going to comment on most of them, just load the photos and then you can browse through them and marvel at the stylish way that they showcased their products. The first photo is of Pete Hughes, mega- talented designer and such a nice guy..

 This first one was made using the latest dies and stencils..... 

The wall plaques below are all made from felt die cut shapes....and some of the greetings are stitched....

I loved this sleek modern box frame, filled with die cut butterflies, I would love that on my wall.....

So that's my first photo-heavy post for you from the show. Lots more to come over the next few days

Now to the winners of the Polkadoodles CD's. They are:

Irene Watson

and

Freetimegone

Congratulations. Email me at enfysc@yahoo.co.uk with your address and I will get them in the mail

See you tomorrow x 

Musings about the Cricut Explore....

There was a Facebook conversation this week, started by a friend who is looking for an electronic die cutter, and, as I sang the praises of the Explore I realised that I haven't really talked about it much on here, although I know that a few of you are looking at getting one

So what I look for in a die cutter is simple, I want it to cut, cleanly, without those annoying little half cut bits that you have to poke away by hand. I want the software to be easy to use, in fact I want it to be idiot proof, because I am a bit of an idiot when it comes to all this techy stuff. I don't need fancy stuff where you weld circles and triangles together and produce a good replica of the Taj Mahal, I admire folk who can do that stuff, but it's not my thing....although from what I have seen the machine is capable of it, if that is what floats your boat....and you can easily import something like Google clip art and cut that. Not to mention the fact that it writes, and you can print and cut, in fact, apart from doing the housework, it's pretty darn perfect 

You do have to be online, which was something that worried me before buying, but in fact, it hasn't been a problem at all, but I do have a good, fast fiber optic broadband 

I would, of course, like a machine that would maybe do the washing up and sort the laundry, but I don't think that's going to happen, so if a machine is uncomplicated, and cuts well without tearing, I am happy. The Explore does that, it cuts better than any other machine I have used, and they have been many, as you know. Take a look at some of these cuts, I shot them next to a ruler for size comparison......most of the cuts are really tiny, and I had no tearing or ripping of paper on any of them......  

This cat is only about 1" long........

See how the Explore coped with those tiny cats eyes?

and there is some seriously fancy stuff going on in this tiny leaf spray..... 

See how the waste from the leaves just stayed on the mat? The whole thing just lifted off cleanly, no prodding and poking tiny pieces....

and the cutting process is made pretty easy too, no more messing around with the blade to change the depth, you just turn the dial and the machine does it all for you....so this machine is definitely a keeper for me

and now on to a couple of cards that were sent to me, I always love it when I get thank you cards - who doesn't....and these were sent by a couple of blog followers who won a recent giveaway, this first one is from Lythan, I love the way she has used the die cut 'thanks' to form the main focus of the card. Lythan is one of the founder members of the Daring Cardmakers challenge blog, so you can see more of her work on there, and pick up a load of inspiration at the same time. If you love challenges, that is one to bookmark, they come up with the most original challenges. Thanks Lythan, I love the card x 

The next two are both from Debbie, a faithful reader here, and when I mentioned I hadn't been very well, she sent me this card. I really love the way she has made an ambulance out of a square, what an imaginative idea....

and from Debbie again, a thank you card, thank you so much for taking the time to make these and mail them to me x

That's it for today, see you tomorrow x

Green Hearts?

So my new Tim Holtz distress ink arrived - Cracked Pistachio, and I couldn't wait to try it. Trouble was, I had got all the supplies out to make a heart card to go with the Clearly Besotted 'Heartfelt Thanks' sentiment, and I just couldn't get my head around another design, so I thought 'green hearts? Why not.....'

What looks like a simple card, involved quite a few techniques and took quite a while. I die cut the tag, then used a Heidi Swapp stencil to apply the green hearts, I then applied Wink of Stella glitter to them, and glossy accents to 'trap' the glitter. When that was dry, I inked with Wild Honey distress ink

The damask heart is a clear stamp from Hobbycraft, I inked with Versamark, heat embossed with white WOW embossing powder, then inked with the green

I stamped the sentiment half onto the card base (Certainly Celery from Stampin Up matches the new distress green really well), then had to work out how to stamp the rest onto the tag so that it matched exactly when I lined it up. I inked some seam binding ribbon from The Ribbon Girl with Wild Honey, and added a few clear sequins and a couple of punched white hearts which were also covered with glossy accents

So there we have it - makes a change from pink hearts I suppose.....

See you tomorrow x

Giveaway!

Here's a lovely giveaway for you today, I have TWO fabulous CD's to give away, Work and Play collection 3 from the oh-so-talented Nikky Hall of Polkadoodles

If you have never used a Polkadoodles CD, you are in for a treat, not only do you get great images of the characters, you can print them out already coloured if colouring is not your thing, or in black and white

When you open the CD, here's what you will see, all these options, all beautifully co-ordinated to match the themes....

You get a choice of loads and loads of backing papers, here are just a few.....

and you can print out sentiments, especially selected to suit the theme of your card.....

Did you know that Nikky also does digital downloads in her shop? So for very little outlay, you can have an image you love sent to your computer for you to start using right away

So to win one of these CD's, all you have to do is leave your name under this post, and I will pick two random winners on Saturday, and let you know on Sunday 15th who won. Good luck!

Lots of you have asked for a Pin it button so that you can pin easily to your Pinterest boards, I have added one to the top of the page, it's the tiny red button just under the header......thanks for pinning, I take it as a huge compliment. Let me know if this works for you, I am a bit technically challenged and stumbling around in the dark a bit with this.......

Fantastic!

Another refugee found sheltering in the murky depths of my cupboard was this Tim Holtz fan die, I only bought it because it was on clearance for some ridiculous low price - bargain, right? Well no, not really, since I have owned it for about three years and this is the first time it has seen the light of day. I must stop doing this!

Anyway, here is a card, I thought it would make a good male birthday card, for those irritating males who don't golf, fish, garden - they really should take up a hobby just to make our lives easier. I cut it out of two Crate Paper papers, and paper pieced the fan pieces, then added glossy accents to the plain, aqua paper. I punched a couple of circles from silver card to add a bit of detail, and added another to the banner to link it up. The sentiment was done on the computer. The whole fan/die thing annoys me because I could have done something similar using my Explore without spending any pennies..hey ho, I must learn to focus 

I had a real 'mooching around and achieving nothing' sort of day yesterday - all the ideas that were floating around in my head turned into something that a five year old could achieve, as soon as they were put onto paper. Back to the drawing board........at least the rejects have shown me the way to go, so hopefully today will be full of results

Have a great weekend, I'll be back tomorrow with a little giveaway x  

So the Pencils came out.......

 When I was having my massive tidy up/clear out, I came across my tin of Prismacolor pencils - all 72 of them, I bought them on sale, in Michaels,  ages ago and went through a stage of using them a lot, blending them with stuff called Gamsol and getting into a real mess, so I pulled out this new Woodware stamp and coloured it without any blending solution at all, I just used the pencils, and I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out......

I used an embossing folder for the background, the left hand of the card on the photo looks odd, it must be the camera angle, it was okay in real life, but I have already given the card to a friend, so too late to take another photo now.....

By the way, my new stamp storage system is so efficient, that I went to pull out this stamp so that I could give you the name, and I can't find it anywhere. It should be filed under flowers.......but it isn't.....in fact, it is nowhere to be seen among any of my carefully labelled and indexed stamps, so on reflection, this doesn't bode well for my new system.

The weather is still bitterly cold and it was the worst of all worlds here yesterday - cold, grey and raining! Time to cozy up and do some serious crafting, I feel another video coming..........

See you tomorrow x

A Gift of Cards......

I recently received an act of great kindness from a friend, and wanted to do something to show my appreciation, so made a set of cards, pretty much for all occasions that they can pull out whenever they need to send a note to someone.

I wanted the cards to look like a set, but didn't want them all the same, so decided to use just three little stamps as the base for all of them, a solid diamond, and two smaller solid diamonds, by Papertrey Ink

All the inks used are Simon Says stamps, for this first pair, I used Slate, Fog and Schoolhouse Red. Sentiments Stampin Up and Great Impressions

Coral Reef, Mint, Cobblestone - Sentiments Hero Arts and Stampendous

Slate, Fog and Audrey Blue - sentiments Cricut Explore

Lavender, Hydrangea, Green Apple - sentiments Memory Box dies

Dark Chocolate,  Goldenlocks Fossil - Sentiments Hero Arts

I stamped an envelope to match each card......

and found a shallow box that held all the cards and envelopes.....

It used to hold chocolates, luckily the sides of the box were plain and the top of the box was a stylish black with an embossed shiny swirl, just the name to cover up.......

and as the recipient is a man, (although I daresay it will be his wife using the cards!) I didn't want the top of the box to be too flowery, so came up with this design....

A picture heavy post from me today, I hope you like them. See you tomorrow x